Government of the United Arab Emirates Interested in Getting a Stake in Hynix

The government of the United Arab Emirates has shown interest in acquiring a stake in Hynix Semiconductor, a South Korea-based maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), according to media reports. While the government of South Korea would give preference to a local investor, it will also consider a bid from the UAE.

Creditors of Hynix Semiconductor, including Korea Exchange Bank and Korea Development Bank, are now looking forward to sell their 28% stake fully or partly in the DRAM maker, reports Dow Jones news-wires citing Electronic Times news-paper. The KEB and KDB got stakes in Hynix Semiconductor after a series of debt-for-equity swaps in the early aughts when Hynix almost went bankrupt due to low demand towards memory.

“There’s no change in our decision that we will accept the letter of intent from domestic companies by the end of January. If there’s no company to submit the LOI, we will discuss the issue in the shareholder meeting. It is impossible to sell the controlling shares to foreign investors. But, we will consider the participation of financial investors,” said insider of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said, reports Electronic Times.

Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE, already controls Globalfoundries, the world’s third largest contract maker of semiconductors, and also has a large stake in Advanced Micro Devices, the world’s second largest supplier of x86 microprocessors. A stake in Hynix may help UAE to develop its own semiconductor industry.